Force-motion schemas in metaphors of motion

The goal of the paper is to investigate the role of motion in Force Dynamics, a framework developed by Talmy (1976, 1988, 2000) and adopted by, for example, Sweetser (1982, 1991), Johnson (1987), Pinker (1989, 1997), Jackendoff (1990) and Brandt (1992). To this aim, descriptions of force-dynamic schemas (gestalts) by Johnson (1987) and Talmy (2000) were analysed to prove that both authors often use the word force metonymically to refer to motion or, more specifically, to the moving object, its velocity or trajectory, which accounts for vagueness and sometimes even inaccuracy of description. The conclusions of our study were then applied to the analysis of 50 metaphors of motion, which showed that all of them can be characterised by just four force-motion schemas, difering from one another in terms of continuity, application of forces, as well as spatial and temporal constraints of motion.